Passive Optical Networking (PON) enables the shared use of fiber for services such as data, voice and video over most of the distance between a central office and service subscriber sites. PON is significantly less expensive to deploy and operate due to the compact size and passive nature of much of the equipment comprised by the PON facilities. For example, a passive optical splitter that fans the fiber out to service subscribers in a PON is relatively small, uses no electronics and requires no power source.
Current and emerging PON solutions offer cost-effective, end-to-end solutions that are capable of delivering a combination of high-demand services. Specific examples of such current and emerging PON solutions include Broadband PON (BPON), Ethernet PON (EPON) and Gigabit PON (GPON). Examples of services that can be provided via such PON solutions include various types of telephony services, data transmission services and video services. Signals for such services are transported optically from the central office (CO) or headend (HE) to an optical-network termination unit (ONT) at a service subscriber's site. The ONT is configured to provide optical network termination functionality and, in some implementations, to also provide conventional network interface device functionality.
Dynamic bandwidth allocation allows for bandwidth allocation for active ONTs to be adjusted dependent upon factors such as real-time bandwidth requirements, QOS commitments and the like. Conventional dynamic bandwidth allocation solutions, such as for idle-cell detection and for buffer status reporting, are known. Such conventional dynamic bandwidth allocation solutions are implemented in hardware-based approaches.
One limitation of hardware-based approaches to dynamic bandwidth allocation is that they are incompatible with proprietary interfaces of many PON processor chips. Another limitation is that certain components (e.g., field programmable gate arrays) of such hardware based approaches carry data traffic and require a temporary break in the data traffic while reloading new instructions during a dynamic bandwidth allocation service upgrade. In many environments, such a break in data traffic is deemed to be unacceptable. Another limitation is that dynamic bandwidth allocation (hereafter “DBA”) functionality is fixed (e.g., cannot be adjustable while the hardware is serving traffic) and is only able to operate according a preset DBA method. This prevents dynamic bandwidth allocation from being instantaneously more, or less sensitive to bandwidth requests.
Therefore, methods and systems configured for providing dynamic bandwidth allocation functionality in a manner that overcomes shortcomings associated with conventional approaches for providing such functionality would be useful and advantageous.